The link building cost calculator, set out per niche
There is no calculator on this page. What you get instead is the price table such a calculator would run on: per niche the price per link, the number of links per month, and the monthly budget that follows from those two. Two multiplications and you have your own sum, ready to hold up against any agency quote.
Two numbers, one multiplication
There is no calculator here, because there is nothing to calculate that you cannot do yourself in ten seconds. This is the sum, with the e-commerce range as the example: the bottom and the top of the same niche.
What link building actually costs
This page is a price overview, not software. The question of what link building costs has no single answer: it depends on your niche and on how hard the competition is there. What you can do is look up the two numbers that decide the budget, the price per link and the number of links per month, and multiply them.
Those two numbers are listed per niche in the overview below. An example using the e-commerce range: at €120 per link and 6 links per month you land on €720 per month, at €350 per link and 16 links per month on €5,600. That is exactly why a quote without a breakdown says so little: without knowing how many links are placed at what price, you have nothing to weigh it against.
The overview is meant for anyone considering a link building programme who wants to know up front where the money goes, or who wants to test an agency quote against what the market normally charges.
What decides your place in the range
Three things decide where in the range you end up.
- Your niche: in legal and finance a link costs four to five times what it costs in local services, because the sites willing to link there are scarcer and more critical.
- The competition: the harder the competition, the more links you need, so the higher up the range of links per month you sit.
- The number of pages: if you want more than one page to rank, you either spread the same number of links across more pages or you raise the number.
The amounts below are indicative market prices, excluding VAT. They are not quotes, not averages from a study, and not an export of our own programmes, because we do not hold such an export covering our work since 2017. Treat them as an order of magnitude to hold a quote against, not as a measurement.
What link building costs per niche
The price per link and the number of links you need per month differ sharply by sector. These are the market prices we work with, excluding VAT.
- Local services: €50 to €150 per link, 3 to 10 links per month, typical monthly budget €250 to €1,500.
- E-commerce and online shops: €120 to €350 per link, 6 to 16 links per month, typical monthly budget €1,000 to €5,600.
- SaaS and software: €200 to €500 per link, 6 to 16 links per month, typical monthly budget €1,500 to €8,000.
- B2B services: €150 to €400 per link, 3 to 10 links per month, typical monthly budget €750 to €4,000.
- Recruitment and HR: €100 to €300 per link, 6 to 16 links per month, typical monthly budget €800 to €4,800.
- Property and estate agency: €120 to €350 per link, 3 to 10 links per month, typical monthly budget €600 to €3,500.
- Legal and finance: €250 to €800 per link, 6 to 16 links per month, typical monthly budget €2,000 to €12,800.
Where your niche starts, and where it stops
The same seven ranges as above, but stacked on a shared scale. That shows in one look what disappears in a list: the ranges overlap heavily, and the difference between local and legal is not in the width but in where the range begins.
What link building returns: yield and risk
Link building without a strategy is mostly expensive guesswork: random placements on irrelevant websites, no view of the costs, a risk of a Google penalty and no measurable result. With a strategy you work on targeted link acquisition on relevant websites, a transparent budget, a safe and durable link profile, and measurable progress against agreed indicators.
Three factors decide the yield. Once links start to work, organic traffic often grows faster than expected. Links also stay live for years: count on a placed link contributing for 3 to 5 years. And the comparison with paid traffic matters: through Google Ads you quickly pay €2 to €15 per click, whereas a backlink incurs that cost once and then keeps delivering for years.
What a programme returns in your case we cannot work out for you. That depends on your margin, your conversion and what a client is worth to you, and you know those numbers and we do not.
Frequently asked questions about link building costs
What does link building cost per month on average?
For local businesses the monthly cost sits between €250 and €1,500. For competitive niches such as legal or SaaS it can run up to €5,000 or even €12,000 per month.
How many backlinks do I need to rank?
With low competition, 3 to 5 quality links per month can already be enough. With high competition you may need 10 to 16 links per month.
What is the difference between cheap and expensive backlinks?
Cheap links under €50 often come from PBNs, link farms or irrelevant websites. More expensive links come from real, relevant websites with strong domain authority.
How quickly do I see results from link building?
On average it takes 2 to 4 months before you see meaningful movement. The real impact builds over 6 to 12 months.
Can I do link building myself or do I need an agency?
You can do it yourself, and at a small scale that is also the cheapest route: you write, you approach, and you pay only with your time. Count on a few hours per placement, plus the research to decide which site is worth it. You usually bring in an agency once you want several placements a month and that research no longer fits. The line is not a budget but the question of whether your hours earn more elsewhere.
What is the best link building strategy for my budget?
On a small budget you back something people mention of their own accord: a calculation of your own, a list, or an explanation that exists nowhere else. That costs time, not money. If there is budget, what you mainly buy is pace: guest contributions on sites you picked yourself, and a steady flow of one or two placements a month rather than a spike. What you do not do in either case is buy a package of links without seeing where they land.
How do I know whether a backlink is any good?
Look for a domain authority of at least 20, preferably 30 or higher, and for a website that is relevant and has real traffic.
Do the prices include VAT?
No, the amounts named are indicative market prices excluding VAT.
From an amount to the work itself
An amount is a starting point, not an end point. For the work itself we use LinkLoop, a system that combines AI driven prospecting with an automatic quality check on domain authority, relevance and spam score, followed by full outreach, placement, monitoring and reporting.
In LinkLoop you see per month which placements are live and which have gone offline, in your own dashboard and with your own Search Console next to it. We do not publish result figures for the network: it is young, and any number that would impress you today would be invented.
Want to look further than link building alone? Then see the overview of tools and plugins from TheSEO, including the llms.txt generator and the tool to protect your SEO traffic from AI. Want your own sum tested against your situation? Book a call and we will work through it together.
And if the amount that comes out of this calculator is simply more than you want to spend right now, that is a legitimate answer. There are four pillars you hold entirely yourself, and an honest limit where links do decide, and both are marked out in how do I rank higher in Google without backlinks.
